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Comment by Longhanks | Hacker News Reader

This pulls something from https://cdn.turbo.run/alwsl/alwsl.sfs - what's this URL? How can anyone tell this is related to Arch Linux? Why do the readmes link to 404s? All of this seems rather unfinished. Could have polished at least the github presence a little.

Also, what are the advantages compared to solution like https://github.com/RoliSoft/WSL-Distribution-Switcher, which allows selecting different distributions, including Arch Linux?

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> ...which allows selecting different distributions, including Arch Linux?

Sorry to rain on your parade, but there is _no_ official Arch Linux image on Docker[1], as you can easily verify[2]. Use at your own risk whatever Arch Linux image you happen to find on Docker Hub, such as this one[3]. It might work or it might break, but it ain't official.

[1]: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=214973

[2]: https://hub.docker.com/explore/

[3]: https://hub.docker.com/r/base/archlinux/

The attitude here is hard to understand. [3] is very clear about how it's built, no guess work involved.

Looks like heavy WIP (https://github.com/turbo/alwsl/issues/5). There isn't really anything on the main branch, indicating that it probably shouldn't be used(?) yet(?). Also, this seems to be the backstory: https://github.com/Microsoft/BashOnWindows/issues/8#issuecom...

https://github.com/turbo/alwsl/blob/master/alwsl.bat#L307 - it's a squashfs filesystem which is unpacked to replace the Ubuntu filesystem that WSL uses by default.

I was curious how the squashfs was generated too but didn't find anything describing it.

Typical of windows ecosystem and developers to sow confusion and infringe upon trademarks. Windows/Microsoft - where "X actually means Y" and always changes meaning, never for the freedom of the user, always to maintain tight control and power over computing.

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